RODGER DODGER REVISITED
Category: Wilson, Race
SHELBY FOOTE
SHELBY FOOTE
When Jimmy Carter was elected, my Mother rationalized “…Well – at least we now have one who doesn’t have an accent.”
Recently I have spent some time watching interviews with the late Shelby Foote. I particularly liked the graduation ( “commencement”) address. Shelby’s voice MADE the Burns’ PBS series on the Civil War.
All Southern Americans wrestle with the race issue. Mr. Foote is a peer of great delta writers. All have dealt with the past. Or tried to.
The link below, beginning at about minute twelve, caught my attention. The moderator, who is Black, solicits Mr. Foote’s comments on the issue.
Almost with deep anguish Shelby started with “…it is difficult to talk about”, or a similar “…you had to know what it was like back then.”
As if talking to himself. he tried to defend his beloved South while unable to justify the horrors.
And admits the history will never justified:
“…’BACCA,BBQ, BALL GAMES, AND BROWNBAGGIN'”
The recent video PICK UP YOUR BED AND WALK revisits Fike High School’s three state football championships. Russell Rawlings’ book, CYCLONE COUNTY, also explores this scene (Wilson, NC –late 1960’s ).
I wrote PLAY IS WHERE LIFE IS about twenty years ago. The link below includes a chapter on Wilson and Eastern North Carolina, and Atlantic Christian College (now Barton College ), with many comments on this same period of time and some later.
On the link below I have listed several “tales”. I think this is the best chapter I have written, mainly because of all the area’s characters.
https://littlegreenbookoftennis.com/category/h-wilson
SCROLL DOWN
- TEAM SPIRIT
- A SENSE OF HUMOR
- DEPARTMENT CHAIRMAN
- DOC AND PEAHEAD
- HAND WRITING
- HOMER CLOCK
- THE SCAR OF RUSSIA
- GEOMETRY
- RUNS IN THE FAMILY
- THE GYM
- TOP HOT DOG
- THE OLD, OLD GYM
- FROM BOHUNK TO HAWN
- ODE TO THE GYM
- RASSLIN WITH BUDDY
- POSSUM
- ROCK RIDGE UPDATE
- CPR
- DINNER TABLE CONVERSATIONS
- TELEPHONES
- PIER WALKING
- COUNTRY STRIKES AGAIN
- WEDDING PLANS
- THE MAYOR
- DR. HAMLIN
- YOU CAN CALL ME AL
- OLYMPICS BOUND
- BLOCK/CHARGE CALL
- CHARIOTS OF FIRE
- 1984
- COMMON SENSE
- AIN’T IT FUNNY
- HEARING AIDS
- RESUMES
- Wilson-65 years ago
- FIKE HIGH SCHOOL
- Peanuts and tennis
Main blog and all books:
AMERICAN
Tom Parham: “ In the 70’s a lawyer opined that the then ITCA could limit international college tennis players . The membership voted to do so. The “big boys” threatened to withdraw their membership. Others advised a quota would be found illegal. There was no litigation.
Given the current conservative bent , would now be a time to “screw up some courage”?
Note : Coaches and Athletics Directors aren’t the sole input (IDS 1357 ).
“GORILLA BUREACRATS?” : NATIONALcaa, UNITED STATES ta, USpta, NATIONALfhsaa. Global sports.
Now is the hour.
FUBAR
“YOU CAN TELL A LOT ABOUT SOMEBODY BY PLAYING GOLF WITH THEM”
***********
Tell me I’m wrong.
The “ Cheater -in- Chief “ promised the solution to the problems of college athletics
next week.
Rules by one who likes to “ roll it in the rough “( see films ). REDACT MY SCORECARD!
Panel of “advisors” ? (97% male, white, old, Republican )
One woman, no blacks, one Democrat, no players.
****
Like giving Jesse James the train schedule.
JESSE WELLES
JOIN ICE
[Verse 1]
Well, if you’re lookin’ for purpose in the current circus
If you’re seekin’ respect and attention
If you’re in need of a gig that’ll make you feel big
Come with me and put some folks in detention
[Verse 2]
Just last week was kind of tough, I put a kid in cuffs
I zip-tied a lady to a van
We can sneak around town, hunt workin’ folks down
I hear they got a great benefit plan
[Chorus]
Join ICE, boy, ain’t it nice?
Join ICE, take my advice
If you’re lackin’ control and authority
Come with me and hunt down minorities
Join ICE
[Verse 3]
Well, I failed the academy, the cops weren’t havin’ me
The Army didn’t sound that fun
So I found me a paramilitary operation
That was keen to hand me a gun
[Verse 4]
I got picked on at school, I never felt that cool
There’s a hole in my soul that just a-rages
All the ladies turned me down, and I felt like a clown
But will you look at me now, I’m puttin’ folks in cages
[Chorus]
At ICE, we’re respectin’ power
Join ICE, I hear they got great hours
There’s a sign-on bonus of 50 grand
They’re in need of you needin’ to feel like a man
Join ICE
Look at ’em go!
[Verse 5]
Well, if you’re lookin’ for purpose in the current circus
If you’re seekin’ respect and attention
If you’re in need of a gig that’ll make you feel big
Come with me and put some folks in detention
[Verse 6]
See I failed the academy, the cops weren’t havin’ me
The Army didn’t sound that fun
So I found me a paramilitary operation
That was keen to hand me a gun
[Chorus]
Join ICE, boy, ain’t it nice?
Join ICE, take my advice
If you’re lackin’ control and authority
Come with me and hunt down minorities
Join ICE
“…Oh yeah, the boy can play.”
WILSON, NC-65 YEARS AGO.
Karl Fleming -SON OF THE ROUGH SOUTH
Wilson, NC–1960’s Chapter
From Booklist
Fleming will forever be remembered as the Newsweek reporter who was photographed after being severely beaten in the Watts riots of 1966. In this memoir, he recounts the long road that led to his reporting on race relations and the incendiary social issues that exploded that day. He was born in 1927 in a poor, bleak North Carolina community and raised in an orphanage when his mother could no longer afford to take care of him. Fleming left college early to begin life as a reporter with a small-town ( WILSON, NC ) newspaper, covering the police beat with a cynical police chief who mistreated blacks. It was Fleming’s first hint that, having grown up in an orphanage, his sympathies were with the underdog. He went on to cover the turbulent racial changes in the South, including James Meredith’s enrollment at the University of Mississippi and the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr and Medgar Evers. In this stunning memoir, Fleming offers the perspective of a poor white boy witnessing the racial turbulence that changed the U.S. Vanessa Bush
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Review “A harrowing and brutally honest account of Fleming’s experiences on all sides of the civil rights battle.” — Publishers Weekly, April 25, 2005
“A rich and absorbing book, a window into a time and place that defined America.” — Washington Post Book World, June 12, 2005
“Incredibly rich in history, in bravery and brutality, Karl Fleming’s Son of the Rough South is so beautifully written.” — Anne Lamott, author of Traveling Mercies
“It makes for a tense, harrowing, utterly gripping journey.” — Newsweek, May 23, 2005
“Karl Fleming knows how to tell a story.” — Frank McCourt, author of Angela’s Ashes and ‘Tis
“Their story will take the reader on a trip not soon forgotten of spirits unwilling to be broken.” — San Antonio Express-News, June 19, 2005.
“a vivid, often painful memoir…” — David Halberstam
“offers vibrant portraits of the most harrowing incidents of [the civil rights]…” — Kirkus Reviews, March 15, 2005
…recovers for us a brace period of our recent history, and delivers it with all the sharp…edges perfectly intact. — Barton Chronicle, October 2005
FFFlemingsssssssss craft soars to a level of artful elegance with blunt, unsentimental language full of casual grace notes — The Nation, August 15 and 22, 2005.
************************
” RED AND YELLOW, BLACK AND WHITE…”
1945
“Jesus loves the little children,
All the children of the world.
Red and Yellow, Black and White,
they are precious in his sight.
Jesus loves the children of the world.”
2025
Jesus loves most of our children.
Almost all of them are white.
Wetbacks, commies, jews and queer,
we gonna make em disappear.
Jesus love only those who white ?
SUGAR TO SHINOLA
Didn’t take much time or ink for world opinion to go from ” God Bless America” to ” God damn, America ?”
